It is well known that many Jews were killed by the German occupier in the Netherlands in the Second World War. At the beginning of the war, the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in Utrecht had one Jewish Professor, Jacob Roos, and five Jewish students. The fate of all of them was terrible. Of the seven students, only three survived, one of whom was Philip Cohen. He graduated midway through the war and then went hiding in De Bilt. When there was a razzia in De Bilt, he went to the faculty and hid above the horse stables. The faculty cooperated in this and thereby saved his life. Professor J. Roos and the other four students - S.B. Cohen, E.I. Boässon, W.S. Marsman, and R. Franken - did not survive the war. They were all arrested, transported to a concentration camp, and murdered there. There were eleven Jewish veterinarians in the Netherlands at that time: A. Herschel, M. Slager, R.H. van Gelder, A. Wolf, F Block, S. Simons, H.S. Frenkel, S.I.M. Mogendorff, E.H. Kampelmacher, A. Clarenburg, and J. van der Hoeden. Only five of them survived the war, mainly because they went into hiding. They had difficult lives during the war, but after the war most of them had successful careers. Another five veterinarians were arrested, transported to concentration camps, and murdered there. One was not killed by the Germans, but committed suicide during the war. These personal histories indicate that the fate of Jewish veterinarians in the Second World War was lamentable, for approximately half of them did not survive. However, the fate of those who did survive was very positive, because of the careers they made afterwards.

O.m. over zijn vader F.A.F.C. Went

Most experiment stations originated from the cooperation between entrepreneurs and the government. From the 1890s onwards, the government, together with the well organised colonial entrepreneurs, established research departments for several plantation crops at the Botanical Gardens at Buitenzorg (now Bogor), that eventually became independent experiment stations in the first decades of the twentieth century. By the 1920s, the ‘proefstationswezen’ (experiment station system) numbered some fifteen private experiment stations or sub-stations. After the war, the private experiment stations together with the government experiment stations at Buitenzorg were to provide the backbone of Indonesian agricultural science. Dutch biologists in particular, made a striking plea for pursuing the natural sciences in the tropical colonies. First, they pointed out the scientific importance of the tropics. Secondly, they stressed the role of the natural sciences, in particular biology, as a natural ally of colonial agriculture. Pure science was seen as a leading force for technical and social progress. The third motive was the cultural value of science for the Netherlands and its colonies. The cultivation of science in the colonies gave international prestige and strengthened self-confidence in the imperial struggle around 1900. Science had a civilising effect; scientific research, however, was to remain in the hands of western, colonial scientists. From the 1880s and 1890s onward, the experiment stations in the Indies were characterised by their strategic aims and scientific orientation. Up to 1910, the ‘academic’ views of biologists like Treub and Went concerning science and practice were predominant, and research was considered to be the central aim. From 1910 onwards, advice became more central and special extension services were established at the experiment stations. Due to diverging views of science, tasks and aims became a battlefield for discussions in the next decades. In the background of these debates were the rise of Wageningen Agricultural College, the rise and institutionalisation of applied agricultural sciences and the increasing competition between Wageningen and university trained scientist. Genetics and breeding in particular were at the core of the research programmes. The practical aim of the breeding work, however, did not leave too much opportunity for more fundamental investigations. The impetus for pure research came from individual researchers. In tobacco and sugar cane breeding, new scientific theories provided inspiration, but to a large extent the practical breeding work built on nineteenth-century breeding techniques. In many respects, plant breeding and university genetics became separate disciplines. Circa one in six Dutch biologist worked for at least some time in the colony. The colonial experiment stations instilled a practical and pragmatic attitude to Dutch science into quite a number of biologists. Besides, the experiment stations system provided Dutch biologists with an extensive network and international contacts with fellow scientists, entrepreneurs and captains of industry. The scientific nationalism of Treub and Went, the bloom of the experiment stations and the ambitions of the Indies colonial elite did not result in the establishment of an independent, ‘Indische’ scientific community. Essentially, the Dutch East Indies were an exploitation province of Dutch science

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